From March 16 to July 6, the National Archives will display a new exhibit entitled “Power & Light: Russell Lee’s Coal Survey.” It features more than 200 photographs taken by documentary photographer Russell Lee.
Coal mining has long served a place of importance in Appalachian history. But a new exhibit in Washington, D.C. will help the region’s industrial past reach a wider audience later this week.
From March 16 to July 6, the National Archives will display a new exhibit entitled “Power & Light: Russell Lee’s Coal Survey.” It features more than 200 photographs taken by documentary photographer Russell Lee.
In 1946, Lee conducted a survey across 13 U.S. states, documenting the inner workings of the coal industry and its impact on miners and their families.
Alongside his wife Jean, Lee captioned the collection of works slated for display. His survey followed a series of strikes from coal miners that had originally been met with national skepticism, according to the National Archives website.
The exhibit spans 3,000 square feet of the Lawrence F. O’Brien Gallery. It also features a handwritten note from President Harry Truman on the strikes, and several other primary sources.
The exhibit is free and open to members of the public.
Harpers Ferry was home to the second-ever meeting of a civil rights group that gave way to the NAACP. A new documentary in part highlights the town’s connection to the movement.
The historical importance of Harpers Ferry becomes clear on any drive across the town’s cobblestone roads. Museums, Victorian homes and storefronts shelved with old-time goods line each of the town’s winding streets.
Many West Virginians know Harpers Ferry as a hub of Civil War history, serving as the site of an 1859 abolitionist uprising led by John Brown and Shields Green.
But fewer people know that the town also played a seminal role in the 20th century civil rights movement. Now, a new documentary, which can be viewed for free on PBS Passport, aims to raise awareness of an often overlooked piece of American history with direct ties to West Virginia.
Origins Of A Black-led Civil Rights Group
In 1905, a group of Black civil rights leaders came together to form the Niagara Movement. Historians describe the group as a precursor to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
The group was founded by Black Americans in Canada, just outside of Niagara Falls. It aimed to address racial injustice in the aftermath of the Civil War, advocating against things like sharecropping, racial segregation and pervasive anti-Black violence across the United States.
For its time, the Niagara Movement was viewed as radical. It was run exclusively by Black civil rights leaders like W.E.B. DuBois and William Monroe Trotter.
Curtis Freewill Baptist Church, one of the meeting places of members of the Niagara Movement, is located on Storer College Place in Harpers Ferry.
Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Plus, it offered a countercurrent to accommodationist perspectives on racial justice, which encouraged Black Americans to temporarily accept segregation, better their communities and one day push for increased civil rights.
This revolutionary mindset is what drew the group to Harpers Ferry in just its second year. Beyond its ties to abolitionist uprising, the West Virginia town was home to Storer College, a historic Black college open to discussions on racial liberation.
“They felt safe to come to a Black college,” said Scot Faulkner, who co-founded a local organization called the Friends of Harpers Ferry National Park. Faulkner’s group serves as a liaison between current town residents and the national historic park.
“They saw a link between themselves as a force, basically an aggressive force on behalf of African American rights,” he said. “They felt common ground and common philosophy with John Brown and the more radical abolitionists going back into the 1850s.”
While visiting parts of the town, Faulkner said the group’s leaders even took off their shoes because they felt that they were walking on “sacred ground.”
Faulkner said that Harpers Ferry provided a stepping stone for early civil rights leaders addressing racial injustice at the turn of the twentieth century. But not everyone who visits the town is aware of this history, which can be overshadowed by the town’s Civil War ties.
Located in downtown Harpers Ferry, the Storer College Museum contains several displays on the history of Black education, as well as the Niagara Movement’s meeting in West Virginia.
Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Shining A Light On The Niagara Movement
A new documentary titled “The Niagara Movement: the Early Battle for Civil Rights” released through Buffalo Toronto Public Media earlier this month tells the story of the Niagara Movement, from how it was founded to how it gave way to the NAACP.
Raymond Smock is a historian who serves as director emeritus of Shepherd University’s Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education. He also previously served as historian of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Smock contributed to the documentary, and hosted a screening of it on Shepherd’s campus earlier this month.
While the film doesn’t center on Harpers Ferry alone, Smock said it shows that the West Virginia town facilitated early civil rights discussions.
“This was an amazing meeting at a very historic spot where John Brown’s raid, some say, started the Civil War,” he said. “There was a great interest in holding this meeting.”
Still, Smock said that the Niagara Movement does not always get sufficient attention in contemporary historical discussions.
An exhibit on the Niagara Movement, an early civil rights organization, is located inside the Storer College Museum in Harpers Ferry.
Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
“In the immediate vicinity, if you’re in Jefferson County, West Virginia, the Harpers Ferry meeting of the Niagara Movement is pretty well-known history,” Smock said. “But it’s not well known in most other parts of the state or the nation.”
Both Faulkner and Smock said that they hope the documentary helps people learn more about the Niagara Movement and civil rights history.
Much of this history can be discovered right in West Virginia, at historic Harpers Ferry sites like the Storer College campus and the Storer College Museum. The multi-level museum has exhibits dedicated to Black history, from the Niagara Movement and beyond.
For Faulkner, the ability to discover these pieces of American history on a simple walk through town is what makes Harpers Ferry great.
Harpers Ferry “was the philosophical and emotional link between the Niagara Movement in the 20th century and the abolitionist movement, especially the more forceful aspects of the abolitionist movement, of the 19th century,” he said.
“It was a really important melding of these two threads in American history, and certainly of the African American rights movement,” Faulkner said.
Several West Virginia attractions are participating in the National Endowment for the Arts initiative to offer free admission to active-duty military members and their families.
The Blue Star Museums program includes more than 2,000 museums across the country offering the deal from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
Participating state attractions are the Huntington Museum of Art, the Spark! Imagination and Science Center in Morgantown, the Watts Museum at West Virginia University, the Marion County Historical Society Museum in Fairmont, the Museums of Oglebay Institute in Wheeling, the Arthurdale Heritage museum and the Clay Center for the Arts & Sciences in Charleston.
After waiting for over six years, Morgantown art lovers flooded the halls of the WVU Art Museum Tuesday to see the university’s diverse collection of modernist and contemporary art.
Robert Bridges, the museum’s chief curator says the WVU Arts Museum is the only art museum between Charleston and Pittsburgh as well as Cleveland and Washington D.C.
“Our job, I feel, is to bring art from the outside areas in here to give not only our students but the people of West Virginia a chance to see what’s happening in the greater art world,” says Bridges.
The exhibit is called Visual Conversations – Looking and Listening and it showcases artworks WVU has been collecting since the 1930’s. Over the years some of the works have been temporarily displayed at Stewart Hall, but for many of them, they are being seen by the public for the first time. The collection houses Appalachian, American and even international works.
“With this exhibition, we have paired up some of these artists so you see an artist that was working in the region along with artists that were more nationally known,” says Bridges
Credit WVU Today
/
Visitors view Blanche Lazzell’s mural
The museum’s pride and joy is the exhibition of the West Virginia artist, Blanche Lazzell. Born and raised in Monongalia County and a WVU alumna, many of Lazzell’s modernist works showcase West Virginia’s physical and social landscape. One of her most visually striking pieces is her untitled mural of Monongalia County that was painted in 1934 for the courthouse.
“The colors are just so vibrant and with the placement on the back of the gallery wall, people come in to the large gallery, they can see it and walk towards the space,” says Bridges.
After spending much of its life in storage, Lazzell’s mural is finally back on display.
Joyce Ice is the director of the WVU Art Museum and she says its opening isn’t just significant for the university but also for the state, “adding to the cultural vitality that makes Morgantown one of the best small cities in America while contributing to its wellbeing and that of our region and our state.
In an effort to make art more accessible, the museum is free and open to the public five days a week.
WASHINGTON (AP) – More than 2,000 museums nationwide including eight in West Virginia are offering free admission to military personnel and their families this summer, beginning on Memorial Day.
The Blue Star Museums program is being launched Wednesday at the San Antonio Museum of Art in Texas. This is the fifth year for the program created by the National Endowment for the Arts with the group Blue Star Families and the Defense Department.
The free admission offer runs through Labor Day in September. It’s extended to military service members, including National Guard and Reserve members, and their families.
The initiative began in 2010 with fewer than 1,000 museums.
Click here to find a list of participating museums in West Virginia.
